dim lighting heightened senses, im your prisoner of explict shit/no boundaries, censorship, or inhibitions, this is limitless/baby can we just…act out the final scenes from mr & mrs smith/you throwin me up against walls, i throw you on the floor and empty clips/your hair is gone to shit, your lipstick smeared, my back is scratched my shirt is ripped/we stop & silence murders the chaos of it all…and then we kiss.
—Xen
Xen jammin’ with TriggerFish @ Disastr House…
Music video we created for the song “Next Stop” by Rockford-area (and globally-bound) emcee, Xen. We had previously collaborated on the video for his track “Dear Winter,” and got such a positive response from everyone that we needed to work together again asap. We were discussing making a simple, low-concept video for one of his industry cover tracks, but when we met in person at Wired Cafe, we decided that the instrumental didn’t fit the direction we should go in.
I told him, “I don’t care what we do. But I’m feeling manic lately, so I want to see what we can do today.”
Looked through a few tracks sent to him by a producer friend from NYC (whose name I don’t know, though I’ll find it out) and selected one that seemed to fit the tone that we were looking for. That afternoon we went over to Xen’s apartment and recorded a previously written-verse to that instrumental.
With the help of the awesome folks at SVL Productions, we were able to affordably rent a DSLR shoulder-mount rig, a wide-angle lens and also the superfast Canon 85mm f1.2! Went out to the bus station in downtown Rockford, synced up the track with the assistance of Xen’s brother, Peter, and started shooting right at the golden hour. We walked to 4-5 nearby locations and by the time we were shooting the second half, the sun had completely disappeared, meaning that the f1.2 lens was absolutely necessary at that point.
The edit happened fairly quickly because I wanted to get the video out as soon as possible, and thanks to my friend Jason loaning me his 27” iMac, quite fun as well. I also dropped a beat, some additional instruments and a few hits onto the original track to fill it out a bit more. I actually had hoped to get some people to collaborate on the instrumental stuff but it didn’t happen quickly enough. Next time I am really interested in bringing some more friends in on some other parts — I feel like I know too many awesome, talented people to merely observe them creatively growing — I want to be a catalyst.
TL;DR — Xen = dope. I’mma producer, where the beat machine at? REBEL ALLIANCE.
My Latest visual offering: “Next Stop” - Xen
i’m sorry, but i find this shit hilarious.
how else you think i always got somethin’ fresh to say?
icyflows asked: I'm sorry for "borrowing" your picture without your permission..but I'm glad you like the artwork that came out of it..:)
nah, it’s all good. i’m happy to have inspired you. now i’m going to make you hit the streets and sell t-shirts of the image. lol. jk
